The World War II Emergency Rubber Shortages

About 80 years ago, the World War II was going strong in the South Pacific. For a period of time there was no sign of victory for either the U.S. or Japan. One of the largest effects to the world was the Japanese control of most of the tropical islands that grew natural rubber trees. The quality of this product was best in the world! These islands would continue to be the only rubber supplier of Japan and Germany.

For a while the U.S. was almost out of natural rubber as was the allies in Europe. What now to provide tires on military equipment on the front lines? The United States began advertising campaign to request any used or discarded rubber items. These could usually be recycled into rubber products to lessen the shortages.

Yes, there was a few areas in South America where the weather was similar to the South Pacific, however, the temperature was not always consistent so the rubber quality could not be counted on as the regular supply the U.S. had been accustomed to.

Probably the largest supplier of natural rubber to the U.S. during this emergency was from a plant grown in arid regions of our Southwest. It was the Guayule plant. Its use had been discovered as a more quality rubber producer in the 1920’s, but the volume could not come close to the islands in the South Pacific. It also remained more limited in production of useful synthetic rubber. When the media heard about the Guayule plant, it became “the talk of the U.S.” that our rubber shortages would soon end. Large fields of the Guayule were planted on land that had little use to other farming.

This small, woody, drought resistant shrub resembled Sagebrush and provided a good quality latex but not significant for the large quantities lost in the South Pacific. It took almost three years to harvest its supply of latex to create useful products. As good as the product was, the volume did not fill the U.S. needs. We were back to recycling old rubber items!